As an experiment, I wanted see what the map would look like with a parchment background. I found a free royalty-free image on DeviantART. I've said this before, I love that site for map making. It has free downloadable images and brushes. For most, all you have to do is credit the artist and/or send them a link to your finished product.

Note: When you're making a pattern out of the parchment image, you should select the entire image-- not just a small portion of it. At first, I turned a small section of the image into a pattern. That section wasn't big enough to fill the entire land. The results looked terrible.When you follow the steps in the Photoshop guide, select the entire image to turn into a pattern.

You've probably noticed a new landmass at the bottom of the World Map. Meet Sorin.

Tsya is where architecture is born. Sorin is where weapons are born.

Creating this landmass was...interesting. With Tsya, I had an idea of how I wanted the land to look. With Sorin, I had no idea. Using the Brush Tool, I created a big brown blob, then I shaped it with the Eraser Tool. I didn't like the first couple of tries, so I consulted the map cheat sheets I mentioned in the first post of the series. I used them as a guide to shape my land and that's what came out of it. I'm happy with. On to the mountains!